


On Casual Homophobia and Reconciliation

by mamdible



Series: Basketball Babes (Essays on Internalised Lesbophobia and How it Affects Relationships) [1]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Akashi/Midorima is just a middle school thing and isnt endgame, F/F, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, I'll probably write something about them but this isnt it king, Internalized Homophobia, Minor Violence, Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder, Recovery, Unhealthy Relationships, shitty things that happen when you're a huge lesbo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-13 20:49:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18038774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mamdible/pseuds/mamdible
Summary: Midorima enters Teiko Middle School as an uptight, rigid schoolgirl. She leaves with a broken heart, a diagnosis of OCPD, and a bothersome reputation as a lesbo.Midorima enters Shuutoku High School heartbroken, alone and very angry at the world in general. She meets Takao Kazunari there, and things devolve.





	1. Middle School

**Author's Note:**

> yo ok so i know that cisswaps can be considered transphobic, but i think i've handled it pretty well in not changing gender expression in either beyond what they express in canon while also taking into account the pressures of society towards women in general. If any trans people find any issues with this, please comment so i can fix it up as soon as possible. 
> 
> anyway! lesbians! they're hot! i am one and that is cool! comment if you are also a lesbian, or part of the LGBT community, or you just enjoyed the story!

Midorima Shintarou enters Teiko as a rather rigid, frigid twelve-year old with a strict set of habits. She leaves with a broken heart, a diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, and a reputation as lesbo. 

*

(She knows what she is because she lives next to two of them – a foreigner and someone from Akita, both in their forties and happy. Mother develops a fascination for them the minute they move in, guessing their relationship immediately (easy to do when they aren’t hiding, Shintarou supposes) but Father gives only stony disapproval. Sometimes Mother worries for them, worries that they cannot support themselves or are not safe or are not happy. Shintarou looks at them hugging in their living room from her bedroom window and something in her aches)

*

Sigmund Freud believed that all girls had an innate ‘Penis Envy’, and that this envy was displayed strongly during youth, the duration of which young girls would become interested in phallic objects and masculine habits. He believed this envy to be nothing more than a symptom of female inferiority, a belief he wove throughout his theories so tightly it would be impossible to separate them.

Midorima, in youth, is prissy, but at the same time tomboyish. She refuses to wear skirts, keeps her hair in a pixie cut, and plays basketball better than most boys on her team. It earns her little but derision from boys, but it does earn her the interest of girls. Unlike media representation, girls don’t shun her because she plays sports and is sporty; rather, they admire her athletic ability and intelligence and ‘beautiful hair, does your mom let you dye it? I want blue hair when I’m older, but mom says I’m not allowed it”.

Father sometimes remarks about how well she fits into Freud’s theories, and she bites her lip and tries not to remark on how out-dated and ridiculous his ideas are, and thinks of who she is.

*

She joins the basketball club immediately upon entering middle school, and she meets Akashi Seijuuro. The other girl is much shorter than she is, with startlingly red hair and brown-red eyes. Her face is perfectly made up, lip-gloss thinly veiling the small smile she wears. Midorima feels as if she’s burning up as she eyes the curve of Akashi’s neck, how long her eyelashes are.

(She knows what she is because when practise is over, she finds herself staring at Murasakibara’s chest, which is as large as the rest of her, and when she realises what she’s doing she feels a hot flush of shame run though her)

Akashi is brilliant at everything. Basketball, schoolwork, shogi – the last one is important, because when they sit down and play Akashi’s skirt flares around her thighs and Midorima’s heart squeezes.

Midorima learns during their games. She learns how to play shogi, obviously, but she learns more than that. She learns what mannerisms amuse Akashi and which irritate the other girl. She learns how to make Akashi happy, and strives to keep the girl smiling.

Stimulus-response pairings. She looks at Akashi and learns habits, moulds her personality around her messiah. Maybe it’s unhealthy; to think of Akashi in such godly ways, but how else can she describe the perfection the other girl holds? 

*

There’s a senior in the school who’s like her, too. He’s quiet and sullen and bullied, with pain in his eyes. Midorima doesn’t want to become like him, doesn’t want to suffer for what she is. It’s almost a betrayal when she hears Aomine sneers at him and calls him a fag when they pass him in the hallways. He doesn’t respond, just looks down his nose at her friend and Aomine stares back. Midorima can feel herself shrivelling, curling in on herself, slowly disappearing. She wants to disappear. She doesn’t want him to look so knowingly at her. Is it really so obvious?

*

Akashi kisses her, not the other way round. Akashi kisses her gently, over the shogi board at six seventeen in the evening. Midorima kisses back with desperation, and three minutes pass. At six twenty, the pull away, blushing and flushed. 

Akashi’s eyes are unreadable, searching her face for some meaning hidden to everyone but herself. Midorima wishes she knew what Akashi is thinking, but she doesn’t dare ask. Silence is thick and heavy in the room, so they kiss again. 

*

They aren’t dating. That much is clear; they aren’t going out. They steal kisses wherever they can, and Akashi slips her hand up Midorima’s shirt and cups her breast (she’s only thirteen, there isn’t much there to cup). Midorima feels full to bursting. She’s scared that she’ll float away, carried into the sky by the weight of her guilt and the secrecy.

She should not be guilty for who she is. She should not have to hide it. She should not have to swallow down the feelings of want, the way her eyes trace the swell of breasts and get lost in her captain’s gaze. She does hide regardless, because she’s terrified.

Akashi is an escape, but Akashi is not a refuge. Akashi is full of twists and turns and has her own problems, problems that crush her beneath their weight. Midorima’s parents would not approve if she were to tell them. They would be angry, perhaps even furious, and they would mourn for the little straight daughter that never existed. Her life would be hellish for years, but she would escape eventually, if she were to tell them.

If Akashi were to tell her father that she were a lesbian, he would be more than furious. He would be terrified, and Akashi would not escape unscathed; would not escape at all.

How sad is it that for the both of them, their families are something to hide from, something to be scared of? How sad is it that their homes feel like labyrinths, designed to keep them trapped?

 

The end was in sight by the beginning. Before it, even, and they both knew, yet started regardless. It lasts for nearly a year, pure ecstasy where they meet and touch and connect, and then it begins to splinter.

*

They win. And win. And win again. They become champions, and are celebrated, and are alone. It is difficult not to think of how she is better than those around her, not when they give up the second they step on to the court. It is difficult not to enforce her standards of perfection on to her peers, difficult not to nag and push for them to be better, they really have to be better.

Akashi is the same as her. Akashi pushes them, a driving force that is starting to feel a tad too tyrannical. Midorima remembers a time before Akashi was captain, when the girl was soft and kind, and the two of them fell into place effortlessly. Aomine begins skipping practise, and Midorima is furious. All she can think about is Aomine, in their first year, calling the gay senior a fag. The word repeats again and again, and she is angry.

Aomine is allowed to skip practise. Kuroko is heartbroken, robbed of a best friend. Murasakibara is jealous, and Kise is angry. Things spark and catch a flame and explode, and suddenly the girl Midorima has maybe-loved for years now is practically a stranger.

*

They still kiss, but it isn’t gentle. It feels like Akashi is drowning, dragging her down alongside her. The girl pulls at her hair (which is getting long enough to put it in braids, now) and bites her lip and slides a leg against her, rubbing and it feels good and awful at the same time.

Midorima doesn’t stop her, lets Akashi conquer her body with mouth with teeth with hands, and hopes she doesn’t salt the ground where she’s been razed down.

In their third year, everything starts falling apart. 

In their third year, Akashi introduces her to horoscopes.

“There’s a slight hesitation before you shoot,” she says. “You don’t have faith in yourself. That’s alright; you don’t need to have faith in yourself. Have faith in fate instead.”  
It becomes an obsession. She cannot leave the house if she does not have her lucky item, she cannot interact with those that have low compatibility with her star sign that day, she cannot do anything without permission from the fates.

Her parent’s worry for her, arrange meetings with psychologists, and Akashi smiles all the while. Somehow Midorima has the feeling that the other girl did this on purpose, which is stupid. How could she know that mental illness ran in Midorima’s family? How could she know that a genetic predisposition, triggered by the right circumstances, would trigger ‘the worst case of obsessive compulsive personality disorder I have seen in my entire career, I have to recommend she be institutionalised’?

(Her parent’s don’t institutionalise her, thank god, but anti-psychotics are introduced and used, as well as any other drug they can pump into her. It doesn’t really matter that she has a personality disorder, not a mood one, because her parent’s are convinced that they can fix her with as much medicine as possible. She doesn’t disagree.)

Akashi doesn’t comment on her new habits. Others do, and she haughtily says absolutely nothing. Her life is falling apart, and she doesn’t know what to do.

*

They get caught. It was bound to happen, because they were getting reckless – long and heavy make-out sessions in the changing rooms, in the closet, wherever they can touch or pretend they’re alone.

Two days before they get caught, they have sex. Akashi fingers her and Midorima squirms and is uncomfortable and also very, very aroused. She tries to return the favour, and thinks she succeeds. It’s everything she’s wanted for a long time, but when she gets home she feels invaded, conquered, pulled open and vulnerable. She cries herself to sleep.

The day after they have sex, her eyes are puffy and she pours herself into practise, sinking ball after ball neatly through the net. Akashi watches her, and her heterochromatic (that change scares her, makes her think of concussions and change in pigmentation and the like) eyes are impassive. Maybe she’s hurt that Midorima is hurt, maybe she’s offended.

Midorima doesn’t know what to do.

Two days after they have sex, they kiss again, and this time they get caught. Midorima is the one to initiate the kiss, and to her horror it is Aomine that catches them. There’s no immediate reaction from the girl, but slowly an expression of disgust comes over her face and Midorima’s heart drops.

*

 

(She doesn’t know if Aomine told others, but the day after that she has a reputation as a perverted lesbian. Akashi somehow escapes the slander untouched, which annoys her a little, but she wouldn’t want Akashi to experience the whispers and expressions of disgust and the like.

Somehow Aomine still jokes around with her. No one openly treats her differently, but there’s an undercurrent of disgust in every hand that wavers before clapping her on the back. She isn’t sure if she hates Aomine. She isn’t sure if she loves Akashi, but she is sure that Akashi does not love her)

*

The two ladies next door move away, and Midorima feels more alone than ever. She is now the senior that she desperately didn’t want to be, alone and mostly hated. 

*

Her application to Shuutoku is more a prayer than anything else. In her first and second year, she wanted to follow Akashi wherever she went. Now she wants to escape her once maybe-girlfriend. 

She enters Teiko as a terrified twelve year old that couldn’t stop thinking about how she saw the two ladies next door. 

She enters Shuutoku as a 195cm girl with small breasts, long hair, a diagnosis of OCPD and a broken heart.

*

Karen Horney was derisive towards Freud’s theory of Penis Envy. She proposed that girl’s imitated masculinity not out of an innate desire to be more than their ‘inferior souls’ could be but rather because they wished for the opportunities, the freedom given to men that is held so far out of reach of women.

Midorima does not want to be a boy. She is a girl, and she is happy with that. She wants to have what men have – she wants to be free to do anything. She wants to kiss a girl and she wants people to accept that.


	2. High School

Takao Kazunari hates Midorima Shintarou. The girl is too tall, too pretty (though that is a thought she keeps very close to her heart, and outwardly laughs at the ugliness and awkwardness of the girl) and far too good at basketball. Astrology freak, nut job, and apparently a dyke.

Now, Takao isn’t a homophobe. Gay guys are really cute, and she’d love one as a best friend. But she isn’t about to change in front of a bunch of guys, and she isn’t going to change in front of a lesbo, either. 

Apparently Midorima Shintarou is a lesbo. It just makes her more weird, just alienates her further from being a human. Takao Kazunari hates Midorima Shintarou, and is now going to the same school as her. 

*

She doesn’t really gossip about Midorima. Not actively, not on purpose. It’s just the girl has already become the freak of the school, and it’s hard not to laugh along with her friends at what ‘lucky items’ she carries to school each day. They don’t bully her, and no one is mean to her (not to her face, at least) and so obviously Takao isn’t a bad person. 

During basketball practise she doesn’t mock Midorima, though. No one mocks the weird girl during basketball practise, not when she’s standing at the half court and sinking three pointer after three pointer with terrifying accuracy, almost like a machine.

Takao looks at her and pushes herself harder, stays back later, nearly throws up after the drills and gets better. She gets better and better and she resents Midorima for pushing her so much.

*

Her first conversation with Midorima is quite startling. The other girl looms in front of her, eyes and hair equally green (is she mixed? A mutant? Some sort of genetic experiment?) and says, “Scorpio and Cancers have high compatibility today”.

Her voice is quite high and delicate, despite her being big and ugly and brutish. She’s not actually brutish, or ugly. Something in Takao twists uncomfortably.

“Uh… okay?”

That’s her reply. It seems nice enough, though a tad passive aggressive. Midorima curls her lip, and walks away, leaving Takao absolutely fuming. 

She stays late, until the only other person in the gymnasium is Midorima. She hates that the other girl practises so diligently; if she were lazy and superior, she would be easier to hate. 

Because nothing is easy, Midorima practises religiously, biceps flexing as she shoots hoop after hoop. She’s already riddled with the muscle Takao is scared of developing, the kind that scares off boys and makes you ugly. 

Takao watches her as she runs through drills, watches how her hips tilt when she jumps, how her chest (average size, or a little above average, and Takao feels a little bit better for a second) bounces when she lands and how her thighs tense when she runs to get a rebound.

*

(Takao has no idea who she is. She’s fifteen, female, one eighty centimetres and D cup, pretty and popular and a bit of a tomboy without being too butch and unattractive. She likes boys that are taller than her and boys who are fit. She watches girls in the changing room, how their breasts bounce when they run and move, but she’s not gay. It’s just jealousy, just appreciation)

*

If you can’t beat them, join them. Takao approaches Midorima with a smile and calls her ‘Shin-chan’. Midorima’s expression is priceless, and she pushes her glasses up her nose to hide her blush.

Takao is a bit worried about making friends with Midorima, because Midorima, though brilliant, is a dyke and dykes in general get attached pretty easily. She doesn’t want to get perved on by a lady fag, after all, but she needs to get better, so Midorima is a necessary evil.

Sometimes she wonders about using words like ‘fag’ or ‘dyke’. Gays get super upset when someone calls them that, after all, but Takao doesn’t mean it in a mean way. She supports gay people – loves James Charles and watches Glee, really wants to make friends with a gay guy if there is one in the school. So does it really matter if she uses words like that?

She doesn’t know. She doesn’t really use them out loud, not often, just in her head. She isn’t homophobic. She just doesn’t want someone to perv on her. 

*

(Midorima changes in a cubicle. She showers in a cubicle, too, and there’s something very sad and hurt in her face when she was first told to change in there. Takao felt a little strange about it)

*

They study Sappho in English class. Jokes are made and Midorima, who shares only one class, looks brutally uncomfortable. The jokes skirt around her, never touching, never breaching, but Takao knows that they are meant for her. Everyone knows they are meant for her. The teacher chuckles along and Takao grins a little too, but Midorima looks pained.

Something like guilt settles in her stomach

*

It clicks one night as she drags Midorima back in the rickshaw (absolutely ridiculous, her hands are getting callused but her stamina is better than ever). Her eyes are on the road, but when she glances back Midorima is studiously glaring at the rickshaw, because if she looked at Takao’s ass Takao would have actually beat her up.

It’s evening, sun long gone down. The full moon is mostly covered by clouds, and the only light is from the street lamps. The yellow light makes Midorima look sharper, thinner, cheekbones standing out from her face. Her hair hangs by her cheeks, wet from the shower she took after late practise. She looks like a Johannes Vermeer painting, yellow light and delicate features.

Midorima is far from delicate. She is thin with whip-tight muscle snaking tightly beneath her skin, winding around bones and letting her lift her arms, letting her jump, letting her let loose those beautiful shots. Takao thinks of her heart, the blood pumping in her veins, the acid in her stomach and how her sweat drips delicately down her neck and under her shirt, which is pulled down slightly, letting Takao see the curve of breasts finally free from the sports bra (practically a binder) that Midorima usually wears.

She remembers Midorima huffing about forgetting her normal bra, then complaining about how it was itchy and irritating her skin after practise, before announcing she was going without. She remembers that Midorima is not wearing a bra, and wonders what it would be like to cup those breasts, to pinch the pale pink nipples and lick at soft white flesh. 

That’s when it clicks. Midorima has somehow contaminated her, somehow, and now she’s a dyke too. The thought makes her sick to her stomach, and she brakes hard. Midorima slams against her back, and yells out in shock or surprise or something. 

Midorima made her gay. Midorima made her a dyke. Is this why she was quarantined, like a leper, from any team members after practise ended (and even during)?

Tears often feel like acid reflux. They burn in her throat, make her feel nauseous, and make her feel like something is coming out. Something is bubbling out of her throat, something is going to burst from her lips and she knows what.

She wants to rage and scream and punch at Midorima for making her like this, for destroying her. If the other girl weren’t there then she wouldn’t have realised, because even though homosexuality isn’t contagious the thoughts that are shaken loose by one of them in her life are. She wants to weep because now she’ll never get married, not to a handsome guy, because now she’s a dyke and that’s the end of that. She wants to kiss Midorima, forcefully and violently, she wants to lick and touch and feel.

She settles on the last one, turning on the seat of the bike and launching herself at Midorima. They crash into each other, bones smashing and muscle aching and Midorima lets out a wordless shout of surprise and bewilderment and fear (not anger). Takao uses the opportunity to lock her lips on to Midorima’s mouth, and mostly misses, hitting her chin and their teeth knock together painfully.

Her next attempt is more successful, and she revels in the heat of Midorima’s mouth and grabs on to Midorima’s waist, slotting neatly between her legs. It’s different to kissing a guy, softer and she tastes nicer, less of beer and more of red been paste (though her last boyfriends have not been so great) and she smells nicer.

It lasts for seconds. It lasts for an hour. It lasts for moments and eternity, but Takao pulls away because Midorima lets out a sob and suddenly she’s aware of the tears on the girl’s cheeks.

In the absence of the heat and arousal, there is cold fear and anger. She whips out a limb, striking (is it a leg? is it an arm? she is a collection of parts that no longer fit together, a chimera so strange its coordination is next to nothing) and then she stands an tumbles out of the rickshaw – it overbalances, Midorima falls out too, and Takao lashes out again before stumbling to her feet and running off into the night.

*

(A strange sight becomes stranger as two girls crash and clash into each other, connecting in romance and violence, though one is but an inanimate object. does a rock have quarrel with the wave that crashes into it?)

*

Takao doesn’t eat dinner when she gets home. She curls under her blanket and cries and hates. First she hates Midorima, for prying loose the traitorous thoughts that once lay hidden. Then, once she calms down, she thinks about what happened.

Thinking from someone else’s perspective has never been her strong suit. It’s difficult, confusing, but she tries because her perspective is biased and spiralling and just doesn’t make any fucking sense at this point.

Midorima got up in the morning, and Takao picked her up in the rickshaw. Midorima went to morning practise, and Takao practised passing to her. Midorima went to school, and Takao was in English class with her. Midorima went to lunch, and Takao ate with her. Midorima went to afternoon practise, and stayed until the sun went down, and Takao stayed with her. Midorima took a shower in a cubicle too small for her, banging against the wall as she tried to tug on her skirt, and Takao changed idyllically, and then they left.

Then Takao suddenly stopped in the middle of the street, and Midorima nearly fell out of the rickshaw. Then Takao kissed her, without her permission, pressed against her and pushed her down, and Midorima started crying. Then Takao pulled back, and punched her (or did she kick her?) Then Takao ran away and left Midorima in the middle of the street, skirt up around her waist and bruised and crying.

If that had happened to Midorima – if a guy had done that to Midorima – Takao would have beat him right the fuck up. She isn’t a guy. She isn’t like the creepy, gross guys that laugh about her tits or make her feel terrified when she’s alone. 

She was scared to be near Midorima because she thought Midorima would be like the creepy guys. Turns out she’s more like said creepy guys than Midorima is. 

And then she hates herself for the rest of the night.

*

She goes to school the next day because her mother won’t let her skip. She trudges in miserably, doesn’t go to morning practise (she’ll cop it in the afternoon, she knows that much, but she can’t bring herself to care) and doesn’t see Midorima for the rest of the day.

At afternoon practise, Miyaji makes her run fifteen laps around the whole school. She doesn’t mind; it means she doesn’t have to confront Midorima immediately. When she gets back she’s sweaty, out of breath, and a little bit embarrassed because she ran into some girls from her class during her run. 

And then she sees Midorima. 

The other girl is stiff, obviously uncomfortable, but that’s not unusual. What is unusual is the huge bruise she’s sporting in her cheek, and the way she kind of limps. Takao thinks faintly, ‘I did that’, and hates herself even more.

*

They don’t talk during practise. The others give them strange looks, worried looks, but Takao ignores all of them. She stays late, like she always does, and so does Midorima. As the hours pass, most of the seniors trickle away until they’re alone in the gym.

The awkwardness is like a physical itch. She can’t escape it, but she wants to. The only way she’ll be able to live with herself is if she apologises. Midorima will never forgive her. All of her thoughts are fragmented, little shards of glass falling endlessly, refracting light and colour and leaving her as a mess.

“Ah… Shin-chan,” she says, and her voice wavers. Midorima tenses as she says her name, out of fear or anger Takao cannot tell. She walks closer, basketball in her hands.

“What is it, Takao?”

Her voice, too, is tense. Takao wishes she never did any of it. Takao wishes she were still straight (or at least under the impression that she was).

“I’m sorry, Shin-chan. I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t have done that. It was awful of me, and I’m sorry.”

“I don’t care,” Midorima says icily, and Takao knew she wouldn’t be forgiven. Why did she hope for it? Why did she bother?

“I just want to know why. Is it because I’m… like that? Why did you do that, Takao?”

Her voice is tense, her body is tense. Tension is in the air, like a tight muscle, ready to release. What does she say? What does she do?

“Is it because I’m a lesbian?”

The word – it’s explosive, something no one says. No one says it, not to her face – its always ‘like that’, ‘dyke’, ‘lesbo’, ‘fag’ – no one says the word. At best they say gay, and Takao hasn’t even used it. It feels scary. It feels real.

“No! I’m not a homophobe, Shin-chan, I don’t care about that stuff!”

Something like rage passes over Midorima’s pretty face, twisting the features into something far more human than what is usually allowed for them. 

“But you do! You do care that I’m a lesbian; you care because you don’t let me change in the changing room! I have to change in a cubicle, and I’m not allowed to look at any girl, I’m not allowed to touch anyone, I’m not allowed to do anything. Do you really think I don’t notice that? Do you really think I’m so stupid as to not notice such a thing?”

Takao doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t know what to do. Because it all made sense, back when she did it. It made sense to quarantine Midorima, because Midorima would have perved on the other girls (though now that she thinks about it, she’s been perving on the other girls a lot more than Midorima).

It wasn’t homophobic. She loves gay people. She might be gay herself. 

“And don’t try to tell me that if I weren’t a lesbian you would still have kissed me and then punched me in the face? What made you think that was okay?”

It hits her low in the gut, low and hard. She truly has been awful, and she doesn’t know what to do.

“I- I just thought that you infected me!”

“With what, homosexuality? That’s ridiculous,” Midorima scoffs. 

“I know! I was just scared and angry! And I’m sorry that I hurt you, I’m sorry that I thought that was okay!”

“And do you expect me to forgive you!” 

“…No,” she whispers. 

*

Days drag on, weary and drab as they pass. Midorima is alone again, and Takao falls back into the same space she left, though it feels far more uncomfortable now. The laughs, the taunts and little sneers feel like they’re destroying her bit by bit. 

Is this what Midorima feels daily? Is this what it feels like for her? She feels a little sick. 

Sometimes she tries to reconnect, but Midorima is stiff and cold and uncomfortable. She’s broken whatever connection they had. All of the blame can (and should) be packaged neatly at her feet.

*

They lose to Rakuzan, brutally. Their teamwork is excellent, and they still lose. It’s hard not to take on the blame for that, too. She tells Midorima that she can’t comfort the other girl, and its true, even though she isn’t sure why she says it. She hasn’t comforted Midorima at all; has done nothing but hurt her.

*

One week passes. It’s winter holidays, now, and she doesn’t see Midorima at all. It feels like something is missing, a gaping hole that she doesn’t know how to fix. Really, she doesn’t know anything.

She doesn’t know who she is, she doesn’t know what she wants to do, she doesn’t know why she’s doing what she is or even what she’s doing at all. She browses news articles and information sites about gay people, tries to learn and educate herself. She stumbles across a term – ‘bisexual’. It might be her, though she thinks she might like girls a little more than guys, now that she’s gotten over the instinctual disgust.

What does she want? What does she want?

*

She has a dream about kissing Midorima. She’s on the ground, rickshaw tipped, but instead of hitting and lashing out at the crying girl (who isn’t crying, not in her perfect dream world) she presses a gentle kiss to her lips. She looks like a Johannes Vermeer painting, colour and shade and gentle, but Midorima is not gentle.

Takao’s knees are skinned, a little bloody and they hurt, but all she can focus on is the girl beneath her. Another kiss, reciprocated, and Takao slips hands underneath Midorima’s shirt. Spring is starting, and the air is getting warmer, but the evening still carries the nip of winter and Takao shivers as she pulls off her own shirt. They entangle on the ground, heat and warmth and ease all wrapped together.

When she wakes up she’s wet, and crying.

*

(She knows what she wants)

*

After changing and masturbating, though not in that order, she finally makes up her mind. Over the winter holidays, she will, without a doubt, make Midorima fall in love with her. First, she has to figure out how.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> man i want a girlfriend. there was a pretty girl on the bus today and she was so gorgeous and she reminded me how lonely i am. if anyone else is experiencing lesbian loneliness please give advice i need help

Midorima is alone once more. Takao has apologised, or tried to, and she knows it’s sincere but whenever she thinks of the other girl she just-

Emotions are irritating. They get in the way; they stop her from being perfect. She feels so many emotions right now, so much anger and sadness and embarrassment. What did Takao even want to achieve by doing that? What was she hoping to do?

*

After the Rakuzan match, Akashi corners her. She’s as beautiful as she was in middle school. Words are exchanged, and Akashi offers to start again their old relationship. Her face is smug, as if she’s won, and even though some part of her still loves Akashi, she doesn’t want a relationship like that.

She doesn’t want a relationship in which she is something to be won, a trophy or some pretty tool for pleasure. Akashi has crushed her in every way, wherever they’ve met, and she doesn’t want to be destroyed in a relationship, too. She thinks about the couple that once lived next to her, the ease and love and comfort they lived in, the love they showered each other which. She turns down Akashi and watches something ugly flash in her eyes.

She is discarded as something pathetic, and her heart breaks a little more. 

*

One week into winter holidays, someone rings on her doorbell. She opens the door, sees Takao, and belatedly realises she’s in her pyjamas (an old spaghetti strap and basketball shorts).

Takao is looking fairly obviously at her chest. Midorima feels the rage well up in her once more, but manages to not slam the door in the girls face. Takao whips her gaze upwards, face wide and scared. It’s odd to not see her smiling.

“Shin-chan! I- I wanted to apologise, again.”

“I thought I made it clear that I didn’t want to hear from you again. Especially not another apology, one that I will absolutely not accept.”

Takao nods, but she doesn’t leave. Scorpios are ranked above cancers today, and Midorima begins to panic a little. What do the fates want her to do? She needs to get her lucky item, but she doesn’t have something that can be applied to that. Kerosuke is a good replacement but he might not be enough. 

“I know, but this time I have something else to say. Shin-chan, I like you. I want to kiss you. I think I might be bisexual.”

Midorima slams the door in her face.

“I’m not kidding! I really, really like you!”

“Go away!”

*

The idea that Takao is bi is a ridiculous one. Takao is pretty and popular and absolutely obsessed with guys. She’s never shown one lick of interest in girls at all. Except for the way she eyed Midorima when they ended up practising alone together. Or the way she blushed whenever Ootsubo came a little too close to her. Or the way she kissed Midorima, and tried to feel her up, and then hit her and cried and ran away.

Maybe she is a little bit bi. Midorima still wants nothing to do with her. Her cheek doesn’t hurt anymore, but the terror of someone kissing her without permission, the feeling of lips on hers she didn’t want was god-awful.

She won’t forgive Takao anytime soon, let alone do something as ridiculous as date her.

*

The next day she doesn’t answer the door. Takao waits outside until the sun goes down, and they have a few shouted conversations that border on arguments in which Takao insists that she has fallen in love with Midorima (of all the stupid things) and tells her she’s sorry.

For some fucking reason she isn’t quite as angry at the girl, can’t summon the rage she used to. 

*

Takao coming around becomes a daily occurrence, one which becomes less annoying each time. It’s not like the girl is stalking her, or pressuring her – it seems she wants to date, and if not that at least be friends again

She lets Takao inside the fifth time she girl comes, mostly because she wants to yell at her face to face. Takao has the biggest grin on her face when she opens the door – not one of smugness, but rather a relieved smile. It makes Midorima’s heart sing, just a little bit, and she knows she’s screwed.

It’s just – she doesn’t want to fall in love, not with Takao. She doesn’t want to fall in love with anyone, but she wants to be in love with someone. She wants the good without the fall, because last time she was left stranded.

Except she wasn’t stranded, was she? Akashi was probably in love with her, and she probably broke her heart by rejecting her. The thought doesn’t make her feel as bad as it probably should have, but she’s been through the fucking wringer because of Akashi too. 

Mutually assured destruction.

*

They sit on her bed, and Midorima realises that she’s forgiven Takao. It was bound to happen sooner or later, because Takao is (though she hates to admit it) is beautiful, and funny and kind, though she wasn’t always.

When she first came to Shuutoku, she had hoped that the rumours from her middle school wouldn’t follow her, but they did. Midorima, over time, has come to learn that most people are homophobic, even when they’re convinced that they really, really aren’t. 

They support the most basic equal rights; the right to marriage, the right to be alive, and everything else is pretty murky. Ootsubo approached her with concerns voiced by the team, voice apologetic and eyes sympathetic, and Midorima seethed. They weren’t comfortable changing in the same room as a lesbo, so she is forced into a cubicle, and it still is like that. 

She plays better than any other person on the team. She plays with a fierceness, trying to get them to see past her orientation to who she is. Girls, though a large part of her interests, are not her entirety. She is a person, not a shadowy representation of perversion.

Takao did not approach her kindly. She approached her despite the fact she was a lesbian, when her being so should not have been a factor at all. Midorima accepted the offered friendship regardless of the fact that Takao mostly hated her in the beginning, because for all that she pretends to be above human interaction, she is still sixteen and achingly lonely.

But perhaps Takao has changed. No, the other girl has changed – is changed. And now they’re sitting on Midorima’s bed, and Takao is nervously chattering away, and Midorima wants to close the gap between their fingers, wants to hold the other girl’s hand. 

She thinks it would be warm.

*

To want and to act are two very different things. Impulses and needs differ within the act of wanting, and must be carefully sifted through the filter of society before being acted into the world.

Midorima wants many things. She wants to be angry, she wants to yell and hit, but not at Takao. Takao no longer is the target of her anger, but her rage is still there, running through her blood undirected. 

Midorima wants to close the gap between Takao and she once more. She wants to hold the other girl’s hand, and press a kiss to the other girl’s lips. She wants so desperately to hug and feel and experience.

She will do nothing, and will remain no one.

*

Three days before the end of winter holidays, Akashi approaches her again. She is a sight to behold, small and manicured and perfect. Midorima feels clumsy in her body when she looks at how Akashi contains herself without fail. She looks like a doll.

And this time Akashi is meek and seeks forgiveness. It seems she has been knocked off her throne, dragged down into the muck that most common folk toil in. In some ways it is a tragedy.

“I apologise for my behaviour over the past two years or so. I have behaved unacceptably towards you, and in doing so I am afraid I have hurt you deeply. Shintarou… I don’t require you to forgive me. I only came here to tell you how sorry I am, but if you would like to begin again…”

Midorima cuts her off. “I forgive you, Akashi. But I will not enter a relationship with you again. I feel that would have a negative affect on both of us.”

Akashi accepts her rebuttal, thanks her for her forgiveness, and walks away. Midorima pretends not to see how her tears ruin her makeup, or how her shoulders tremble beneath her coat. Again, Midorima has broken her heart.

Should she feel sorry? Should she be ashamed?

Memories of Teiko are mostly unhappy ones. Though there are some brief periods of happiness, overall she was miserable. Akashi, though humbled, is not suddenly a good person. Midorima, though stronger, is not suddenly perfect. This will not change.

*

On the last day of winter holidays, Takao kisses her (again). This time they aren’t in the rickshaw, but rather Midorima is lying on her bed and Takao is sitting next to her. The girl bends over, till her hair tickles Midorima’s cheeks, and she asks.

Midorima nods, blushing, and they meet. It is quiet, and warm, and they click. They fit together easily, joining as if made for each other. Perhaps their edges have been worn down by exposure to each other, till they are too similar to be apart for long.

Next time they fight Akashi, they will win. She knows they will, and she tells Takao so, and Takao laughs, and agrees. Is it wishful thinking? She doesn’t really think so. Now that Akashi has ceased to be quite so… psychopathic, it’s going to be much easier to dethrone her once more.

And they will do it, and they will take pleasure in it. Revenge is sweet, after all, but the taste of artificial sugar on Takao’s tongue is much sweeter. 

*

“Shin-chan, I think we need to talk.”

They’re in the changing rooms, and Takao is sitting on one of the benches while Midorima changes off to the side (not in a cubicle, not when they’re alone, but with the team she is still segregated). It’s nearly midnight, and Midorima’s phone has been blowing up with texts from her mother for nearly two hours now.

“What’s the matter?”

“I… I like you, Shin-chan. I want to date, properly, not just make out. I really want to go out with you, go on dates and be all lovey-dovey.”

She can feel a blush forming on her cheeks. God, how could Takao be so embarrassing? And she was under the impression that they were already in such a relationship.

“Shin-chan? What do you think?”

Her face is absolutely on fire right now, she’s certain of it. Why must she be so embarrassing? 

“Shin-chan?”

“I thought we were already like that!”

Christ, she didn’t mean to shout. How absolutely humiliating. She peeks over her shoulder and Takao is looking absolutely gobsmacked, eyes wide and mouth open. And then she throws herself at Midorima, arms closing around her waist (too short to fit over her shoulders) and squeezing tight.  
“You are so cute,” Takao grinds out. She feels indignant at that, because she is not cute. She is tall and strong and smart, but cute is just…embarrassing. 

“I am not,” she says primly. This earns her an amused snort. “Yes you are. You’re adorable, Shin-chan, and you’re so pretty. Your eyelashes are so long, and you have pretty hands.”

“I am fond of your hair,” she says quietly. She has always been dragged into Takao’s ridiculous escapades, so there’s really no point in fighting it. 

Then Takao slips a hand under her shirt and talking is the last thing on her mind.

*

They are heat and passion, mouthing at each other’s skin and trailing hands along breasts, along muscular stomachs and slipping down into their cunts. It’s better than with Akashi, softer and more passionate.

She feels like a bit of a pervert sometimes, with the things they get up to, but the way Takao smiles at her makes her feel a little bit better. This is not to say things are perfect; the fear of discovery, the fear of being kicked out of home is a constant thing. They cannot be together in the eyes of society, and it hurts, but they push through.

There are bad days, days when Midorima can’t get her lucky object and Kerosuke isn’t enough so she just doesn’t leave the house. There are days when she feels like thoughts are eating her alive from the inside out, when she pushes herself and Takao too far in her search for perfection. 

But there are also good days, days when she tentatively steps outside without her lucky object and sees that she isn’t hurt, isn’t destroyed. Those days are better because Takao is by her side. Of course, love cannot fix her mental illness; she will most likely carry it around all her life. But having Takao near her makes it… easier to bear, in some ways. 

Akashi would not have been so patient. She would not have been so kind. She has her own issues, and wants Midorima to be a beautiful ornament, or an entertaining tool. She would not have been so easy to be with. It would not have been good. 

She’s still a little heartbroken, but Takao is not a rebound. She chose Takao over Akashi and will do so again any day.


End file.
